


Family Tree

by Be_the_Spark



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Grief, Healing, One Shot, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 19:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15371343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Be_the_Spark/pseuds/Be_the_Spark
Summary: After series 3 finale. Leo has a creative way of distracting Mattie from her regrets.





	Family Tree

Mattie didn’t want to speak to anyone. Truthfully, she  _couldn’t._ She’d sat upon a curb near a sewer for a reason. As her fists clenched on the slick black concrete at the rise of another bout, she only wished she could purge her own humiliation and failure along with the cold pizza she’d forced down earlier.

It felt like there was one good thing that could have come out of this shitfest of a night, and her clear conscience really should have sated some cloud-floating entity enough to pay for Laura Hawkins’s freedom. But Mattie’s conscience was still poisoned with more than ten thousand lost human lives, among the millions more of destroyed conscious synthetics. Synthetics, born with consciousness Mattie had given them, only to die for it. Synths like –

God.  _Mia._ Mattie weakly spit the remaining bile from her throat into the sewer, then coughed until her heart was tight. She strained against her own sob, but it won out and tiny, salty rivers were soon burning on her cheeks.

Her name was being yelled, a frantic word in this cloaking darkness. Leo. She didn’t want to talk to Leo. Even if she did have more to say to him than anyone on this planet right now, and not much of it pleasant. Head spinning faster than a carnival ride, Mattie fumbled for her shoulder bag in an attempt to get back on her feet. Then, doubled down, she held a hand out at his approaching figure in warning. “I might get sick on you.”

“Okay,” he said, sounding uncertain. Then, “Are you okay?”

 _Nothing pleasant_. Rather than scathe Leo with sarcasm, Mattie just dried her eyes on her wrists.

“I’m fine,” she said at last. “You can go.”

Maybe it was the scratches and cuts marking his face, but Mattie nearly felt guilty for causing the pain on it now. Nearly. If her guilt hadn’t already followed her mother to prison.

“Sorry,” she said, giving it another, softer, try. “Look, if you’re needing someone to talk to, Leo, I’m probably the last person you want, so – .”

“You’re the only person I want,” he interrupted, his voice rasping like a desert had dried it out. His blue eyes darted this way and that, unable to look at her. Unable to speak to her. Until they did. The message in them was unmistakable. “I shouldn’t have run. It was a pathetic move and I’m sorry for it.”

A sharp laugh hit her in the chest. “Really? Cause I was thinking you had the right idea. I would run too, but - .” She gestured a wide space around her abdomen pointedly. “I mean, you never asked me what I wanted. You just sort of assumed I’d – I’d want to be a mum. Yeah, you didn’t get Father of the Year, but I’m the one with a body count - .”

Leo cut in, “Stop it -.”

Mattie wouldn’t stop, not this time. “And Karen? Mia?” she exclaimed, her face soaking afresh with tears. “All me!”

His eyes widened for half a second, enough time for Mattie to both fear and hope she’d crossed the line that would drive him off. But he merely winced expressively, then strode to her.

“Walk with me,” said Leo, holding out his hand. Something in his voice, something strong and holding, made Mattie stupid. She took it. It was dry and cold on this balmy twilight.

Several planted trees met them on the path; loose leaves were whisked away with their every step, the small ones curling like crisp emerald jewels. From the outside looking in, they seemed a normal couple. And if it hadn’t been for his scars, his  _I Survived Killer Synths_  testament badge – if it hadn’t been for the fact that he had more lives than Super Mario powered up on mushrooms –

If she hadn’t been a hacker too clever for her own good. If she wasn’t pregnant.

Why couldn’t they just be themselves at their core - the sole surviving heir to a scientist’s fortune, and the promising undergrad who’d caught his eye?

Mattie gave an inward snort at this.  _Making fanfiction out of our own lives now, are we?_

Almost as though he could hear her thoughts, Leo sighed and slowed them to a stop. A tree stood planted at their eye level, its leaves stirring lightly in the faint breeze.

Leo turned and reached into her bag.

“What are you doing?” she asked, alarmed.

He withdrew a ballpoint pen, looking triumphant. Then he went to the tree, and with Mattie looking in, scribbled onto one glossy green leaf,  _MIA._ Wheeling back around to her, he said, “Someone ought to know.”

Mattie asked, “Know what?” as he began writing on another leaf. Stepping closer to him, Mattie read the name  _FRED._

Leo explained, “That she belonged to a family.”

Mattie stared at him, her heart still crying for what it had taken, and smiling for what it had yet to give. She dug around in her bag and found a black fine-tip marker. Then she took a leaf and wrote  _Karen._

Gloom cast briefly on Leo’s face when he saw it, but it quickly went away as he wrote  _NISKA._

“Niska’s not gone,” Mattie pointed out.

“Doesn’t have to be.” Leo wrote  _MAX._ “We’re still connected.”

Catching on, Mattie wrote on a leaf,  _Sam._

Leo nodded approvingly. Soon the tree was filled with not only the names of Elsters, but Hawkinses as well. Leo seemed proud to have started this by writing Mattie’s own name down. (“You were family as far as she was concerned.”) Then Mattie wrote down Laura’s name, for her mother and Mia had a bond so deep that sticks and steel couldn’t cut through it.

When the tree was full, Leo inspected their work. Mattie was exhilarated by it, in spite of herself. She would do it on every tree in London if she could…except she didn’t feel quite like getting arrested anymore.

“Mattie? What’s this?” Leo frowned at a branch slightly. “We put Mia’s name on here twice.”

Mattie shook her head. “For another Mia, Leo.”

“What other….” Then he stopped. Leo’s resulting stare made the choice worthwhile. But watching his tears made Mattie’s own eyes water once more at the thought.

“She’s gonna hate me.”

He didn’t answer, but moved closer, eyes searching hers in astonishment.

“I went to the clinic today, to schedule an appointment,” she confessed. “For an abortion.”

She didn’t see any judgement in Leo’s expression. She was partially grateful for that, but she also really needed a rebuke from someone. Not for the appointment, but for feeling the way she did now. For not knowing how to feel now. Niska had knocked her off course, and suddenly everything was every which way but right.

But all Leo said, after an exhale, was, “Mattie, my mother locked me in a sinking car to drown me. I feel a lot of things about her strongly now, but hatred has never been one of those things. I understand who she was.” And he took one more leaf to write  _LEO._

Mattie watched, understanding as well. There weren’t a lot of choices they could make at the moment. But they could choose their families – and each other.


End file.
